Inception is frequently ranked amongst Christopher Nolan’s best works to date. And its impact on Hollywood cannot be understated either. The director delivered an original science-fiction blockbuster that grossed north of $800 million on a $160 million budget, earning as much money or more as many superhero films manage to make today, without any reliance on source material. Naturally, excitement abounds when any of his movies are compared to that cinematic masterpiece.
In the past, fans fervently compared Tenet to Inception, linking the two movies together and working feverishly to prove that Tenet was a hidden sequel to Inception. Now, the director himself has compared another of his recent projects to Inception. In a long-ranging interview with Wired, the director described the ending of Oppenheimer to be as complicated as Inception itself. Anything more and I risk misquoting the legend, so here’s his take on it:
I mean, the end of Inception, it’s exactly that. There is a nihilistic view of that ending, right? But also, he’s moved on and is with his kids. The ambiguity is not an emotional ambiguity. It’s an intellectual one for the audience. It’s funny, I think there is an interesting relationship between the endings of Inception and Oppenheimer to be explored. Oppenheimer‘s got a complicated ending. Complicated feelings.
It’s much likely that the ending of Oppenheimer won’t be even remotely as ambiguous or challenging as the one for Inception was. And it’s not for lack of Nolan’s writing skills or anything of that sort. Inception, being an original film, had the luxury of leaving its ending open for interpretation. But with Oppenheimer, history knows the story of the figure at the center of its universe. And while that rules out its ending having any ambiguities left open for interpretation, people will still be conflicted by what he went through and what he tried to achieve in regulating the nuclear arms race, as Nolan suggests.
Oppenheimer releases in theaters on July 21, 2023.
